Homicide: Life on the Street

Simply, the most rewarding dramatic broadcast television show I have ever seen. HLOTS was consistently character driven, well written and beautifully shot and edited. The acting stands alone as a singular achievement in broadcast TV. An across the board gifted ensemble speaking emotionally provocative, unflinchingly honest and challenging words.

Two things kept this show from legendary status: First, for most of it's run, it suffered from a terrible schedule spot, Friday. Second, it was a challenging show. In no way is that a denigration, in fact, the opposite. The levels of meaning presented in the writing and reinforced by the camera style and acting required a level of attention that people normally bring with them to watch the theatre.

Regarding it's lack of very many Emmy's, it was produced outside of Hollywood, yet was made with substantive quality and artistic integrity. My guess is that it therefore lacked clout and engendered jealousy at the same time.

It's cliché, but HLOTS was ahead of it's time. Many shows on today echo much of the style and substance HLOTS pioneered. Look no farther than THE SHIELD, NIP TUCK or THE SOPRANOS for dramatic quality similar to what HLOTS was doing 10+ years ago.

There are other good dramas on TV today, but HLOTS connected so consistently on an emotional and aesthetically fulfilling level that I felt like I had lost a friend when it finished it's run. I can't say that about anything I've seen before or since.

Homicide was the best show of any genre to be made for television. It honestly gave the most detailed and truthful accounts about how criminal investigations really happen. It also touched on the personal lives of how many police officers live and how they deal with the daily grind of the job. I say this because I've been in law enforcement for 7 years and I know how things really happen. Homicide puts the truth in crime TV....all crimes don't get solved overnight or at all sometimes. Homicide touched on that very point in different episodes. It was a show that TV executives should have just let it run it's natural course. It was taken off the air well before it's time!!!

I have never been a big fan of police serials, but this is my all time favourite. I have nothing to add to the earlier comments, other than that in a time with complicated racial conflicts, poverty induced crime and the problems stemming from social inequality, this show tried to comment on the real problems facing the modern society.

And it was exciting too.

We all agree this was probably the best crime series ever made, despite NBC's reluctance to support and promote it. This was TV acting, scripting, and directing at it's best.

What the public could not accept, was that the stories did not have neat endings. Life, and crime stories are messy. The show reflected that. And I'm grateful for it's honesty.

On the other hand, I'm grateful they allowed the show to have a movie that ended several major story lines. At the end of it all, we needed closure, even it some of the endings weren't "happy endings". That in itself showed the quality - the truth of this show.

Fiction can be truthful, and "real". This was the best example . And NBC should hang it's head in shame for the way it treated it. I'm glad that "Munch" still lives on Law & Order SVU, but it's a shadow of a great character in a great show.

On TV you take what you get.

Sorry Law and Order, but there's just something special about this show and there's more of a place for it in my heart, and it has nothing to do with the fact it takes place in my home state (well OK, that's does have something to do with it). It had an unconventional style different from that of L & O, but there were times I found it to be more intellectual.

There was never a bad episode, and the casting was all good, especially Andre Braugher, Yaphet Kotto, Kyle Secor, and Richard Belzer. It's too bad that some cast members left earlier than they should of (Ned Beatty, Jon Polito), but they were ably replaced.

It's really a shame that more people didn't watch this show which led to its cancellation, and appreciate it more with some of the crap that's on TV these days, which is a sad commentary on TV viewers as a whole. Oh well, there's always the reruns on Court TV.